SOUTH BEND, Ind. - As Notre Dame football prepares for its coming bowl game, the Irish took a day to look ahead to the future. 19 new Irish commits made their decisions official on the opening day of the early signing period.

Two of the 18 incoming freshman are five-star talents in running back Chris Tyree and wide receiver Jordan Johnson. The class also includes graduate transfer Isaiah Pryor, a safety from Ohio State who brings two years of remaining eligibility.

"All of these young men are going to develop here at Notre Dame and graduate and contribute to championships," head coach Brian Kelly said Wednesday afternoon. "And so that was our charge. I think we have done a great job in certainly filling potential needs that we have, but also addressing areas that I think more than anything else bring not only positional needs but personality, competitiveness, and overall football awareness and instincts into our program."

The class also boasts a wide geographic range, featuring signees from 16 different states, from Hawaii to New Jersey, and even one from Germany.

"We're never going to limit ourselves in terms of where we'll go to find a guy that will fit," said special teams and recruiting coordinator Brian Polian. "If they're wired the right way, if they want what our university can present to them and we believe we can compete for a national championship with them as a player, then it should not matter where they come from."

Signing Day came at a possibly precarious time for Notre Dame, just over a week after parting ways with offensive coordinator Chip Long, who'd been a primary recruiter for several commits. However, the Irish kept all 18 players in the fold, which Kelly and Polian both attributed to the pull of Notre Dame.

"All these guys -- we had deep, long-standing relationships," Kelly said. "Not one guy recruits here at Notre Dame. It's not your guy. It's our guy. I recruit them, Coach Polian recruits them, we team recruit. That's how we do things here at Notre Dame. And Notre Dame recruits to Notre Dame. So no one person is stronger than the university."

"The transition on the coaching staff, obviously, that was a difficult decision for [Kelly]," Polian added. "And when that decision was made Coach Kelly did an unbelievable job of getting out and addressing it with the prospects. I think our staff in general did an unbelievable job of rallying up. But, again, no one person is greater than the university, and in all these cases, like Coach said, the power of this brand overrides any single relationship. The power of this place. And that's what we found."

Full Class of 2020 Signees

Tosh Baker - OT - Scottsdale, AZ

Landen Bartleson - CB - Harrodsburg, KY

Kevin Bauman - TE - Red Bank, NJ

Jordan Botelho - DL - Honolulu, HI

Jay Brunelle - WR - Paxton, MA

Mike Carmody - OT - Mars, PA

Alex Ehrensberger - DE - Dusseldorf, Germany

Ramon Henderson - CB - Bakersfield, CA

Jordan Johnson - WR - St. Louis, MO

Aidan Keanaaina - DT - Englewood, CO

Clarence Lewis - CB - Edison, NJ

Michael Mayer - TE - Independence, KY

Rylie Mills - DE - Lake Bluff, IL

Caleb Offord - CB - Southhaven, MS

Alex Peitsch - LS - Ellicott City, MD

Isaiah Pryor - S - Lawrenceville, GA (Ohio State)

Drew Pyne - QB - New Canaan, CT

Chris Tyree - RB - Chester, VA

Xavier Watts - WR - Omaha, NE